Wonderin' where the lions are

Life is really good right now. Sorry, life is cellular organization. My circumstances are really good right now. The news flashes:

New Residence
I'm now living in Dundas Ontario. Very cute place. Great arrangement. Renting a room - well - a room and a half - in a large townhouse; I have a ground floor bedroom that walks on to the yard. My newish pal-slash-landlord is a supremely cool woman of substance; a writer, counsellor, theologian and someone who defies my immediate attempt at assigning her a meaningful blog-friendly nickname. Apparently some thought is required here. The main thing is - I'm now in an environment of significant peace.

New Job
I think I mentioned that I'm now working security at a minimum security correctional centre where the security truly is minimal and the writing is maximal. I'm now working straight nights on weekends with extra gigs here and there. I'm making great progress on the current novel. Hurray. Soon I will be finished the first draft and be looking for volunteers to give it a read and provide some basic feedback.

New Haircut
My head is now asymmetrical thanks to the spectacular work of Magicuts at Ancaster Meadowlands. I came home, found scissors and a mirror and made significant improvements.

New Outlook
I'm getting more exercise. I'm eating more healthy. I need more improvement still on these fronts but I'm getting there. There are certainly no more excuses. And I must blog more. Too many useful explorations are going through my head and then being forgotten. This blog is supposed to be a catch-all for useful stuff that doesn't fit into current projects. I need to be here much more often.

The volunteer gig; the young reading and writing groups are on again this year. I'm spending almost all of my time being creative and/or useful with regards to the pursuit of harmony and evolution of consciousness. With everything going so well, one wonders - as Cockburn sang, where the lions are. I thought for the period of a day that I'd found out, when young Neo announced he was pulling back from the poetic mentoring we'd been engaged in for some time now. This is something of profound importance to me.

But I came to realize that this was almost inevitable given the nature of a high-schooler's schedule and priorities and general lack of freedom. I had to remind myself that there was a time when I doubted he could succeed, poetically, at such a young age and that the best I could do was leave him with significant clues, and to look him up again when he became an adult and make myself available at that time if he were interested.

As it turns out, his talents are far greater than he seems to realize but I'm comfortable returning my head to that previous space and to wait. In the mean time I'm confident we will remain creative consultants to one another with regards to music (he is an astounding composer), and that the time will come when he's ready - and able - to revisit our noble aspirations.

And in the mean time I must not stagnate. I must do the work.


"If you would attain to what you are not yet, you must always be displeased by what you are. For where you are pleased with yourself there you have remained. Keep adding, keep walking, keep advancing."
- Saint Augustine

"Great things are done when men and mountains meet. This is not done by jostling in the street."
- William Blake

"I had another dream about lions at the door. They weren't half as frightening as they were before and I'm thinking about eternity. Some kind of ecstasy got a hold on me."
- Bruce Cockburn